VANCOUVER, BC, CANADA, February 12, 2025 /EINPresswire.com/ — As the world’s best teams gather in Montreal for the NHL’s ‘4-Nations Playoff’ series, they’ll be playing a game whose evolution can be traced back to a literal Eden. That’s the verdict of Mark Grant, author of ‘The Four Stars of Early Ice Hockey,’ whose conclusions contradict prevailing views about ice hockey’s earliest era.
Since the internet’s introduction, the belief that the game’s origins are a “mystery” has become increasingly entrenched. It is also widely believed that a group of Montrealers inherited an ’embryonic’ game and transformed it into modern ice hockey starting in 1875. Grant argues that many common beliefs stem from two things. “Three lost newspaper articles from 1943 solve much of the present confusion. One describes the literal birth of Montreal hockey through the lens of an eyewitness, Henry Joseph. The other two, from Halifax, feature testimonies by Joe Cope and Byron Weston, who describe the particular version of ‘hockey’ that one of their own, James Creighton, introduced to Montreal in 1872 or 1873.” That’s why the West Coast author has included the articles in a summary of his book’s final edition: “So they don’t get lost again.”
Grant notes that today’s “dominant” historical definitions are based on dictionary descriptions of early ‘hockey.’ “This is a second problem,” he says. The dictionary-makers define early ice hockey as a game played with ‘any’ kind of skate and curved stick. Through this treatment, Halifax’s entire legacy became equated with one-off games involving royals at Buckingham Palace and the like. Much of the post-internet evidence is cited as proof that hockey on ice was born in England. Instead, it proves that we have lost sight of hockey’s true ‘lineal’ narrative.”
The birth of culturally ‘dominant’ hockey occurred in Halifax around 1863, says Grant, a full decade before the Halifax-to-Montreal transfer. “James Creighton is universally recognized for what he did ‘after’ moving to Montreal, and usually through embellished narratives that start with a March 3, 1875 demonstration at the posh Victoria Skating Rink. What is yet to be considered are Creighton’s earlier years, and the hockey world he came from.”
In 1863, the year Halifax’s first indoor ice venue opened, Dartmouth’s Starr Manufacturing Company introduced a skate that would quickly revolutionize the winter world. By then, the neighboring Kjipuktuk Mi’kmaw had discovered the prototypical flat thin blade. Once combined, these two local technologies produced no less than 19th-century ice hockey’s dominant player. “Since hockey took off everywhere it was introduced in Canada, we must assume that Halifax was no exception. For ten years, Halifax’s finest evolved dominant hockey in stealth mode, unseen in a 19th-century world where everyone else thought ‘hockey’ on ice could be played with any kind of skate and stick. Then, in 1872, one of them broke away from this frozen Petrie dish, James Creighton.
“Imagine a world full of unicorns,” suggests Grant, “where no one in Montreal had ever seen stick handling. This was the “Montreal” that Creighton introduced Halifax hockey to. Two dozen total beginners and one determined ten-year vet gather on a pond, (and plausibly where the old Montreal Forum stands). Creighton has to sell Montrealers on the game, or he might never play hockey again.”
Grant calls Creighton’s performance that day the ‘Selly of the Century.’ “It must be, given what the Montrealers went on to accomplish, including the linking of their game to the Stanley Cup.” He says we can confidently predict the ‘three stars’ of Montreal’s first hockey game: “the Kjipuktuk Mi’kmaq stick, Dartmouth’s Acme skate, and a highly motivated player from Halifax who could make them sing.
“The reactions of Creighton’s new friends explain the rise of hockey across Canada, the USA, and Europe. Lineal hockey spread through and was defined by ‘technological demonstrations. The Montrealers held their demonstrations in 1875 and 1881 when ice hockey was showcased before thousands during the city’s Winter Carnivals. Without the necessary skate and stick, there would have been no mass conversions. But there were, and this is why it may be better to sometimes think of ‘Montreal’ ice hockey as a ‘Halifax-Montreal’ game.”
As for ‘hockey’ being born in Britain or Europe in general: “Enough already. We’ve known since the 1870s that Montreal inherited a ‘Canadian-Mi’kmaq’ version of hockey. It’s absurd to claim a truly ‘North American-European’ game could have originated in Britain. The British invention idea caught on because most people didn’t know that Halifax wasn’t a British-only frontier community, unlike most English Canadian communities. This distinction has definitive historical implications. “Wherever this hybrid game was born in Halifax, it was born in Canada and the Mi’kmaq First Nation, and no earlier than the winter of 1749-50.” Grant feels strongly that ice hockey’s true Eden is Tuft’s Cove. “It was in full view of the very first settlers. The Kjipuktuk Mi’kmaq were selling sticks there until ten days after the founding of the NHL in Montreal when Tuft’s Cove blew up along with half of Halifax.”
All the dictionary definitions do is describe the games Halifax conquered. Canada’s Acme skated circles around its competition, while the Mi’kmaq stick turned its competitors into 19th-century firewood. The others’ place in early hockey history is real, but only as background performers in a Canadian-Mi’kmaq tale that co-stars Halifax and Montreal. All versions of modern hockey—including the NHL’s, IIHF’s, and Olympic hockey—are predicated on two Halifax technologies. And for good reason. As you watch the 4-Nations competition, pay close attention to how much the game relies on the flat thin blade and superior turning. These are Halifax’s eternal, living legacies.”
After their conversion, the Montrealers decided to make Halifax hockey more like rugby. The Four Stars author says the ‘intentional hitting’ game’s introduction meant that Halifax had previously birthed ‘incidental contact’ hockey: “There are two versions of modern Ice Hockey and for very good reason. Both rely on prototypical Canadian-Mi’kmaq technologies. Ice Hockey is as Canadian as maple syrup and poutine, and whatever Mi’kmaq delights may complete this culinary analogy.”
Mark Grant
Hockey-Stars.ca
+1 778-764-5128
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